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Feudum
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Blimey! You and your blokes have been banished and stripped of everything but a few shillings and...
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The Shadow War
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Inglourious Basterds meets Stranger Things in this dark and thrilling tale of power, shadow, and...
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YOU HAVE ASKED, AND WE HAVE LISTENED! The world's #1 and best rugby app just got even better....
Cougar Sim: Mountain Puma 3D
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Free Cougar simulator game. The cougar versus mountain forest animals. Become the brown puma or...
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Bet on the latest Premier League or Championship fixture & win with an acca! Place free bets on top...
Kirk Bage (1775 KP) rated Alita: Battle Angel (2019) in Movies
Jan 22, 2021
Robert Rodriguez is not a good director. He isn’t an especially good writer or producer either. This is the guy responsible for four Spy Kids films, that start below average and downgrade exponentially into excruciatingly awful. What he is pretty good at is ideas, and seeing the potential of something visually arresting and exciting. That is what led to the success of Sin City, arguably his best effort to date, because he saw how the comic book creations of Frank Miller could become live action and he made it happen.
Alita: Battle Angel is a similar deal. This time Yukito Kishiro’s early 90s manga creation is the inspiration. With James Cameron as producer, and the considerable talents of Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali onboard, it would have been pretty hard for even Rodriguez to mess this up entirely. Although at times he does seem to try, mostly by doing too much and making certain sections too busy and too confusingly cross-genre, like he is frantically trying to colour within the lines whilst using every felt-tip in the pack. A habit that means every now and again something great happens, but you may have missed it in all the background noise.
Compare this film, that just falls short of qualifying for my Bad Movie Triple Bill list, to Spielberg’s superior yet similarly busy Ready Player One. Both involve high concept future realities that are very tech and AI driven. Both make extensive use of CGI and vivid colour palettes. Both are frenetic and demand an audience pays attention in order to fully appreciate the storyline. The difference is that one zig-zags back and forth in tone and momentum, and one is razor sharp in moving us from one idea to the next on a perfect learning curve towards a satisfying climax and conclusion. Guess which one is which? This is why Spielberg is Spielberg and Rodriguez is… a hack.
That said, Alita as a character and concept is charming, and you do therefore find yourself at least wanting to discover her story. The action scenes are also quite electric, and the visuals are often breath-taking. But the whole is less than the sum of the parts here, and we are left with something that can only really exist in the same box as dozens of admirable sci-fi B-movies aimed at teenagers, such as The Maze Runner, Mortal Engines and The City of Ember. It also continues to prove the point alongside Ghost in the Shell and Speed Racer that Anime / Manga into live action is a very tricky business.
There is definitely an audience out there for this movie, and I dare say at some point I will be tempted to give it another watch. What is definitely worth watching however, is how James Cameron uses this as a stepping stone to perfecting virtual humans on the big screen. I am sure everyone involved learned a lot in that respect, so all is far from lost.
Alita: Battle Angel is a similar deal. This time Yukito Kishiro’s early 90s manga creation is the inspiration. With James Cameron as producer, and the considerable talents of Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali onboard, it would have been pretty hard for even Rodriguez to mess this up entirely. Although at times he does seem to try, mostly by doing too much and making certain sections too busy and too confusingly cross-genre, like he is frantically trying to colour within the lines whilst using every felt-tip in the pack. A habit that means every now and again something great happens, but you may have missed it in all the background noise.
Compare this film, that just falls short of qualifying for my Bad Movie Triple Bill list, to Spielberg’s superior yet similarly busy Ready Player One. Both involve high concept future realities that are very tech and AI driven. Both make extensive use of CGI and vivid colour palettes. Both are frenetic and demand an audience pays attention in order to fully appreciate the storyline. The difference is that one zig-zags back and forth in tone and momentum, and one is razor sharp in moving us from one idea to the next on a perfect learning curve towards a satisfying climax and conclusion. Guess which one is which? This is why Spielberg is Spielberg and Rodriguez is… a hack.
That said, Alita as a character and concept is charming, and you do therefore find yourself at least wanting to discover her story. The action scenes are also quite electric, and the visuals are often breath-taking. But the whole is less than the sum of the parts here, and we are left with something that can only really exist in the same box as dozens of admirable sci-fi B-movies aimed at teenagers, such as The Maze Runner, Mortal Engines and The City of Ember. It also continues to prove the point alongside Ghost in the Shell and Speed Racer that Anime / Manga into live action is a very tricky business.
There is definitely an audience out there for this movie, and I dare say at some point I will be tempted to give it another watch. What is definitely worth watching however, is how James Cameron uses this as a stepping stone to perfecting virtual humans on the big screen. I am sure everyone involved learned a lot in that respect, so all is far from lost.
PlayMemories Mobile
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PlayMemories Mobile is a free application that makes your Wi-Fi compatible Sony camera use more...
Mark Halpern (153 KP) rated The Blues Brothers (1980) in Movies
Jan 7, 2018
EPIC MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME
Brought to life from Saturady Night Live the Blues Brothers Joliet Jake (Belushi) and Elwood (Aykroyd) were in a music band. The opening shows Jake getting of out a 3 yr stint a joliet prison and begin thier journey together rebuilding thier lives. They are tasked with getting money to help the orphanage that they grew up in and after a stop off at a mass at a local church they belive they are on "A Mission from God" and they must do this with out fail. They relaize the only way this is gonna be accomplished is by getting thier band back together and off begins a wild ride of action,fun and music. Cameos from Carrie Fisher (RIP) Cab Calloway (RIP) John Candy (RIP) Ray Charles (RIP) and other greats makes this movie all the more fun. The movie has two fantastic fun car chase scenes one of which is through a mall. I could go on and on about this movie but then why watch it if I tell you everything. Watch and enjoy a laugh filled fun ride
Jessica Cashen (1 KP) rated Tarnished in Books
May 16, 2018
Fantastic read. Well written, with a great plot and characters. It is a bit slow going at first, then a lot of action starts happening and you can't put it down. I was engrossed from start to finish. Tarnished starts were Pefected left off. Ella spends about one week in a Canadian safe house before watching Penn’s suffering on the news and cannot just sit by. Ella plans an escape and the last person she ever expected help from shows up as Ella is escaping. Thank goodness for her unlikely companion (Missy) she helps Ella navigate the darker black market where pets can be bought, sold, or paid very little for jobs. The more Ella discovers about the inhumane conditions these human pets are made to live in, and mutilated, dead bodies of pets are turning up. Which is kept quiet by bribed police departments, the more determined Ella becomes to do something about it.
Don’t miss the trilogy’s conclusion, ‘Unraveled’ available on April 3rd! I know i can't wait to read it! I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book from Netgalley.
Don’t miss the trilogy’s conclusion, ‘Unraveled’ available on April 3rd! I know i can't wait to read it! I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book from Netgalley.
Ross (3284 KP) rated Dumbo (2019) in Movies
Apr 1, 2019
Once again, a remake that didn't need to be made
Another "live action version" of a Disney classic; another waste of effort. I can't see anyone watching this and thinking it was in any way an improvement over the original. Timothy Mouse is replaced by children, they try to explain why Dumbo needs a feather, the pink elephant scene is a nice attempt at homage but implausible.
I had no idea until the credits rolled that Tim Burton had directed - his touch is completely absent. I suppose in hindsight Micheal Keaton's hairpiece was pure Burton but otherwise any director could have been involved.
There is an odd feel about the scenes in the theme park, as if a Disney film is itself suggesting theme parks are money-grabbing, exploitative tat-mongers.
While there were some nice nods to the original film (DeVito singing Casey Jr's theme, Timothy Mouse's cameo and "baby of mine", the whole plot adaptation just failed.
It may have been a half-decent film in its own right, but as a remake of a classic it has to do it justice and it just plain did not.
I had no idea until the credits rolled that Tim Burton had directed - his touch is completely absent. I suppose in hindsight Micheal Keaton's hairpiece was pure Burton but otherwise any director could have been involved.
There is an odd feel about the scenes in the theme park, as if a Disney film is itself suggesting theme parks are money-grabbing, exploitative tat-mongers.
While there were some nice nods to the original film (DeVito singing Casey Jr's theme, Timothy Mouse's cameo and "baby of mine", the whole plot adaptation just failed.
It may have been a half-decent film in its own right, but as a remake of a classic it has to do it justice and it just plain did not.